What is the advantage of iCloud sync over wifi

zeppo's Avatar

zeppo

11 Jul, 2013 02:17 AM

I guess I can see if you had two desktops at different addresses that you studied on that you wanted to keep in sync. But I doubt many are in that boat. Otherwise, syncing a mobile devise with mac via wifi is simple because its no problem to have them on the same wifi network. So I'm guessing the only advantage of iCloud sync is that it allows two mobile devices, like an iPad and iPhone to sync together, which I guess they couldn't on Version 1? I don't have an iPad so i'm not sure on that. Maybe I'm missing something about the advantages, because it's not any faster and accommodating it apparently really bogs down the program. I can't go five minutes now without the program shutting down on me.

  1. 1 Posted by Jens on 11 Jul, 2013 08:49 AM

    Jens's Avatar

    Well, in my opinion right now only people with a small library have an advantage. That´s quite bad, I hope there will be a wifi-option, soon. MC itself (Desktop and MC/iOS) is a great software, I´m working with it in the 4th year now. But MC2 really needs a fix, I personally think.

  2. 2 Posted by zeppo on 11 Jul, 2013 09:45 PM

    zeppo's Avatar

    I think the advantage must be for those that have two mobile devises. Otherwise, I can't see why iCloud sync was the Holy Grail of the latest update. I very much wanted the advantage of each facet being graded and scheduled independently, because that feature has a significant impact on the effectiveness of the program. Likewise with the more advanced scheduling algorithm. The ability to have reversible and non-reversible cards within the same stack (not possible with the previous OS version) is a very nice convenience. Mulitple-facets is something I would probably have put to use. But the iCloud sync issue seems like it took so much effort to add, for what I don't see as offering an advantage that makes it worth it. So I'm wondering if there is something I'm missing here.

    At any rate, it is still early in the release, so I'm hoping if I keep sending the reports when it prompts me to do so, that eventually some bug can be uncovered and fixed to get this program working better. I turned off iCloud Sync on the iPod to see if not having the background syncing going on would help to allow me to get through my current lesson, but it didn't.

    EDIT: After turning the sync back on, although it took a long time to connect (I had to just leave it in the process and come back later) and give me the option to proceed with keeping the data on the ipod (my choice) or the data on the cloud, it finally was a successful sync. This fixed whatever was causing the program to shut down every four minutes. At least for now. I suspect the fact that the sync runs in the background that one could unknowingly shut the program down or do the wrong thing while a sync is in progress and corrupt it, and that maybe that's what happened that caused it to keep crashing. But that is total uneducated speculation. :) The other is that something is tying up my memory (some kind of cache filling up?) that a successful cloud sync resets. I don't know. But if I can keep this thing working by reloading a sync once a day, I may do it on the hopes that things improve.

  3. Support Staff 3 Posted by drewmccormack on 12 Jul, 2013 07:28 AM

    drewmccormack's Avatar

    The whole world is moving to cloud sync. It was by far the most requested feature, and had to happen at some point.

    The advantages are that you can sync anywhere (including mobile networks), each device can do its own scheduling, you can keep as many devices in sync as you like, and once you have done the initial sync, there is a lot less data to move around.

    You are right that it is more demanding. But this is a 1.0, and will improve pretty fast.

    If it is too problematic, I recommend using the old app for now. We will be improving sync, and possibly offering other options in future.

    Drew

  4. 4 Posted by zeppo on 12 Jul, 2013 09:42 PM

    zeppo's Avatar

    I guess if someone studies on their mac at home, but then wanted to study later away from home on their iPhone, it would be a problem if they forgot to sync the phone to the mac before they left. But I don't see remembering as a big deal compared to the downside of not being able to use the app at all due to it not working. But if improvements do happen fast as you say, then I won't worry about it.

    The fix I mentioned above was temporary. I was able to flip through a couple of hundred cards and then it started shutting down again. Before it shuts down, a card or two will appear without loading any text on them-- just blank. It will sometimes prompt as to whether to send a report or not, and I've been sending them. Hopefully others have as well and you may be able to piece together a solution. Maybe there's a programming bug that causing the memory resources to get eaten up and it can be fixed soon. I'll try turning the sync off and on again and see if that trick clears things up again and lets me study a couple hundred more.

  5. Support Staff 5 Posted by drewmccormack on 13 Jul, 2013 01:14 PM

    drewmccormack's Avatar

    In general, I don't recommend continually switching the iCloud on and off. It results in more data transfer, and possible issues with overloading iCloud.

    If you need to do a complete reset, you can use it to replace all data in the cloud, but otherwise I think it is better to leave alone.

    We will see if there are any possible slideshow memory issues. It could also be memory use in the background due to iCloud sync. Not using the sync may help.

    Drew

  6. drewmccormack closed this discussion on 13 Aug, 2017 07:03 PM.

Comments are currently closed for this discussion. You can start a new one.

Keyboard shortcuts

Generic

? Show this help
ESC Blurs the current field

Comment Form

r Focus the comment reply box
^ + ↩ Submit the comment

You can use Command ⌘ instead of Control ^ on Mac